“Manse, the truth is, uh.—”
“No, please, the phone’s no damn good for what I think you have on your mind. Which is normal and innocent and does you credit. I can meet you whenever you want. Perk of being a time traveler, you know. When suits? Meanwhile, cheer up.”
“Thank you. Thank you very much.” He appreciated the dignity of that, and the way she went straight on to consider arrangements. A swell kid. An extremely swell kid, in the process of becoming one hell of a woman. When they said goodnight, he found that the interruption had not broken his enjoyment of the music, complex though the counterpoint was in this section. Rather, he was borne into its majesty as never before. His dreams afterward were happy.
Next day, impatient, he checked out a vehicle and skipped directly to San Francisco on the date agreed, a few hours early. “I expect I’ll return home tonight, but late, maybe well into the middle-sized hours,” he informed the agent. “Don’t worry if my hopper’s gone when you come in in the morning.” He obtained an alarm-nullifying key, which he would leave in a certain drawer, and caught a city bus to the nearest car rental open twenty-four hours. Then he went to Golden Gate Park and walked off some restlessness.
The early January dusk was falling when he called for Wanda at her parents’ home. She met him at the door and continued out, a “’Bye” flung over her shoulder. Streetlight glowed on the blond hair. Her garb was sweater, jacket, tweed skirt, low shoes; evidently he had guessed right about the sort of restaurant she preferred this evening. She smiled, her handclasp was firm, but what he saw in her eyes made him escort her directly to the car. “Good to see you,” he said.
He barely heard: “Oh, you don’t know how good it is to see you.”
Nevertheless, as they climbed in, he remarked, “I feel a little rude, not saying hello to your folks.”
She bit her lip. “I rushed you. It’s okay. They’re glad to have me staying with them again, before I leave, but they wouldn’t want to keep me waiting when I’m on a heavy date.”
He started the motor. “I’d only have swapped a few words, in my old-fashioned way.”
“I know, but—Well, I wasn’t sure I could’ve stood it. They don’t pry, but they are interested in this, uh, somewhat mysterious man I’ve met, even though they’ve only seen him twice before. I’d’ve had to … pretend—”
“Uh-huh. As a liar, you have neither talent, experience, nor desire.”
“Right.” Briefly, she touched his arm. “And I’m doing it to them,”
“The price we pay. I should have put you in touch with your uncle Steve. He could make you feel better about it.”
“I thought of that, but you—well—”
He smiled ruefully. “Father figure?”
“I don’t know. I truly don’t. I mean, well, yes, you’re high in the Patrol and you rescued me and you’ve sponsored me and, and everything, but I—It’s hard getting in touch with my feelings—Psychobabble! I think I want to think of you as a friend but don’t quite dare.”
“Let’s see what we can do about that,” he suggested, calmer on the outside than the inside. Damn, but she’s attractive.
She looked around her. “Where are you headed?”
“I thought we could park on Twin Peaks and talk. The sky’s clear, the view’s superb, and nobody else who happens to be there will pay any attention to us.”
She hesitated an instant. “Okay.”
Could be preliminary to a seduction. Which’ d be fine under different circumstances. However, as is—“When we’re finished, I look forward to the beanery you’ve picked. Then, if you aren’t too tired, I know an Irish pub off lower Clement Street where they blarney and sing and two or three middle-aged, gentlemanly working stiffs will doubtless ask you to dance.”
He could hear that she understood what he was saying. “Sounds great. I never heard of it. You do get around, don’t you?”
“In random fashion.” He kept conversation easy while he drove, and sensed that already her spirits were lifting.
Magnificence spread below the mountain, city like a galaxy of million-hued stars, bridges a-soar over shimmering waters toward heights where homes gleamed beyond counting. Wind boomed, full of sea. It was too cold to stand in for long. While they did, her hand sought his. When they took shelter in the car, soon she leaned against him and he put an arm about her shoulder; and at last, gently, once, they kissed.
What she had to say was what he had awaited. Demons needed exorcising. Her guilt toward her family was genuine, yet also the mask of a hundred fears. The first excitement, that she—she!—could join the Time Patrol, had inevitably waned. Nobody was able to sustain such joy. There followed the interviews, tests, preliminary study material, and the thinking, the thinking.
All is flux. Reality eddies changeful upon ultimate quantum chaos. Not only is your life forever in danger, the fact of your ever having lived is, with the whole world and its history that you know.
You will be denied foreknowledge of your triumphs, because that would make more likely your disasters. As nearly as may be, you shall work from cause to effect, without turn or twist, like any other mortal. Paradox is the enemy.
You will have the capability of going back and visiting again your beloved dead, but you shall not, for you might feel temptation to fend off death from them, and you would surely feel your heart torn asunder.
Over and over, helpless to help, you will dwell amidst sorrow and horror.
We guard what is. We may not ask whether it should be. We had best not ask what “is” means.
“I don’t know, Manse, I just don’t know. Do I have the strength? The wisdom, the discipline, the … the hardness? Should I quit while I can, take silence conditioning, go back to the life … my folks hoped I’d have?”
“Aw, now, things aren’t that bad, they just seem that way. And ought to, at this stage. If you didn’t have the intelligence and sensitivity to wonder, worry, yes, fear—why, you wouldn’t belong in the corps.
“—doing science, studying prehistoric life. I more’n half envy you. Earth was a planet fit for gods, unbelievable, before civilization mucked it up.
“—no harm to your parents or anybody. Just a secret you keep from them. Don’t tell me you were always absolutely frank at home! And in fact, there’ll be undercover helps you can give them that’d be impossible otherwise.
“—centuries of lifespan, and never sick a single day.
“—friendship. Some pretty splendid people in our ranks.
“—fun. Experiences. Living to the hilt. Come a furlough, how’d you like to see the Parthenon when it was new or Chrysopolis when it will be new, on Mars? Camp out in Yellowstone before Columbus sailed, then stand on the dock at Huelva and wave him bon voyage? Watch Nijinksy dance or Garrick play Lear or Michelangelo paint? You name it, and within reasonable limits, you’ve got an excellent chance it can be arranged. Not to mention parties we throw among ourselves. Imagine what a mixed gang!
“—you know damn well you won’t back out. It’s not in your nature. So go for broke.”
—until she hugged him a final time and said shakily, between tears and laughter, “Yes. You’re right. Oh, thank you, Manse, thank you. You’ve put my head straight, and in … in … why, less than two hours, hasn’t it been?”
“Naw, I didn’t do much, except nudge you toward the decision you were bound to reach.” Everard shifted his legs, cramped after sitting. “It made me hungry, though. How about that dinner?”
“You know it!” she exclaimed, as eager as he for escape into lightness. “You mentioned clam chowder on the phone—”
“Doesn’t have to be,” he said, touched that she remembered. “Whatever you want. Name it.”
“Well, we were talking small and unfancy, plus delicious, and I thought of Ernie’s Neptune Fish Grotto on Irving Street.”
“Tally-ho.” He started the car.
As they wound downward, losing the galaxy and the wind that roared above it, she turned pensive. “Manse?”
“Yes?”
“When I called you in New York, some music was playing in the background. I suppose you were having yourself a concert.” She smiled. “I can see you, shoes off, feet up, pipe in one hand and beer mug in the other. What was it? Something Baroque, sounded like, and I imagined I knew Baroque, sort of, but this was strange to me and … and beautiful, and I’d like to get a copy of that cassette.”
He harked back. “Not exactly a cassette. I use equipment from uptime when I’m alone. But, sure, I’ll be glad to transcribe for you. It’s Bach. The St. Mark Passion.”
“What? Wait a minute!”
Everard nodded. “Yeah. It doesn’t exist today, apart from a few fragments. Never published. But on Good Friday, 1731, a time traveler brought disguised recording gear to the cathedral in Leipzig.”
She shivered. “That makes goose bumps.”
“Uh-huh. Another value of chronokinesis, and another perk of being in the Patrol.”
She turned her head and considered him. “You aren’t the simple Garrison Keillor farm boy you claim to be, are you?” she murmured. “No, not at all.”
He shrugged. “Why can’t a farm boy enjoy Bach along with his meat and potatoes?”